And almost none of it, according to Aurora, accessible via the faerie paths. No one leaves this palace and no one arrives except through the main entrance. “It’s not as though you need to go anywhere else now,” she told me when I asked about the faerie paths. “Just relax and enjoy your brand new palace life.”
Relax? I don’t think so. If almost no part of this palace and its grounds can be accessed by the faerie paths, that means there must be some areas where doorways can be opened. And if I’m hoping to escape once I’ve learned everything I need to know from Prince Roarke, then I have to find at least one of those areas. If I can’t, I’m going to have to get creative with my Griffin Ability. And that will require figuring out how to actually use it.
“My lady?”
My body tenses at the sound of the unexpected voice. I whip around, my heart already thrashing in my chest. But it’s only Clarina, the handmaid Aurora ‘gifted’ to me upon my arrival. She stands beside the ruby-studded gold trapdoor. The open trapdoor I’m certain was locked until now because I found my way to the other side of it yesterday afternoon and couldn’t get through it. I wouldn’t have bothered opening one of the lower windows and scaling the wall otherwise. I clear my throat and clasp my hands together. “Um, yes?”
“Her Highness, Princess Aurora, sent me to fetch you,” Clarina says, her eyes fixed on the floor near my feet. I’ve told her not to worry about averting her gaze when speaking to me, but it’s made no difference. Just like when I told her I’m no ‘lady’ and she doesn’t have to refer to me as such. “But how else will I show you respect, my lady?” she asked. “I can’t simply call you by your name.” I told her that of course she could, but that didn’t go down well either.
“How did she know I was up here?” I ask.
“One of her guards saw you from a window.”
I wipe my hands on my jeans. “Did, uh, did it sound to you like Aurora—Miss—Her Highness—” Darn these stupid titles. “Did it sound like she was angry with me for being up here?”
“No, my lady,” Clarina says. “She was concerned, but not angry. She reminded her guards that you’re welcome to explore your new home, but that they’re also supposed to keep you alive.”
“Right. Cool. That’s what I thought. I mean, about the exploring part.” Aurora gave me a brief tour when I arrived three days ago, then told me I could go pretty much wherever I wanted, other than people’s private suites or chambers or whatever she called them. Since then, I’ve wandered all over the palace under the guise of curiosity, doing my best to pretend I’m at ease in a home as vast and opulent as this palace. I attempt to ignore the guards who watch me and the court members who smile politely before whispering to one another. And I try not to shiver when the atmosphere shifts, as it does occasionally, into something cold and unsettling.
“Uh, well, I guess we’d better go then,” I say, realizing that Clarina is waiting for me to speak. She nods and steps onto the staircase below the trapdoor. I follow her down, flinching when the trapdoor bangs shut of its own accord behind me. Together we descend the spiral staircase all the way to the ground floor of the palace and into a vast column-lined hallway. Its black marble floors are polished to a glassy shine and the precious stones embedded in the ceiling reflect the enchanted lamps burning on pedestals between each column. The rest of the palace is much like this: gleaming black edges, gold embellishments, and glittering gems. Rooms large enough to get lost in, and furnishings so lavish I’d probably vomit if I knew what they cost.
It’s impossible to imagine ever being at home here.
We climb more stairs, cross more hallways, and pass more fae dressed like they belong on the set of a period drama. They all give me curious glances as I pass. Unlike Clarina and Noraya—Aurora’s other handmaid—none of these people know who I am. They have no idea I’ve agreed to marry their prince. How could they possibly suspect that he and I have anything to do with each other when Roarke’s been gone since the moment he dumped me here in his sister’s care? Aurora said he’d return this morning, but I’ve seen nothing of him. I’m starting to wonder if he’s planning to avoid me until the day of our wedding—whenever that may be.
Finally, Clarina and I reach the wing housing the royal family’s quarters. I’ve never been far enough into it to see the rooms belonging to the king and queen themselves, but I’ve passed Roarke’s suite, and I’ve been into Aurora’s every day since I arrived here. I look over my shoulder at the door leading into Roarke’s rooms as I pass. The door is closed and no guards stand outside it, which I take to mean that Roarke isn’t inside.
“Darn,” I mutter, quietly enough that Clarina won’t hear me. A frown pulls at my brow as I face forward again. And then that strange feeling of unease, that inexplicable sense of wrongness, pervades my senses. As if cold, rotting fingers are about to reach from the shadows to clamp around the back of my neck. A flicker of a shadow scurries across the edge of my vision, but when I look over my shoulder again, it’s gone. And so is that sense of discomfort.
“Lady Emerson?” Clarina says. I look ahead and see her waiting with one hand resting against Aurora’s door. “Is everything all right?”
“Um, yes. I’m fine.” Perhaps I keep imagining that odd feeling. Perhaps that’s what homesickness feels like. Maybe, as unlikely as it seems, I’m actually missing the rundown home I lived in with Chelsea and Georgia. No way, I think to myself, almost laughing out loud at the farfetched thought. I may miss my best friend Val, and all the fun we had together, and the freeing feeling of not being hunted down by various members of the fae realm, but I certainly don’t miss that horrible little house and my spiteful aunt and cousin.
Clarina opens the door to Aurora’s suite and stands aside to let me walk in. She bobs into a quick curtsey as I pass, then closes the door behind me. I hear her feet tap away across the polished marble floor outside. On the other side of the sitting room, which is decorated in muted tones and floral fabrics, Princess Aurora, adopted daughter of the Unseelie King and Queen, sits at a small round table. Laid out in front of her is a variety of food, a teapot and two teacups. She leans back in her chair and surveys me. “Really, Em? Climbing the outside of the east tower? Are you trying to scandalize the entire court? If you wanted to see the view from the top so badly, you could have just asked someone to unlock the trapdoor instead of risking your life.”
I cross the room and stop beside the chair on the opposite side of the table from her. “Well, you know. It was earlyish. I didn’t want to bother anyone. And besides, there was hardly any risk involved. I can handle a simple wall. Those great big marble bricks have gaps between them that are perfect for hand- and footholds.”
Aurora tucks her hair—black and blueish purple—behind one ear and reaches forward for her teacup. “And if you’d slipped? Aside from the enormous trouble I’d be in with Roarke and my father if you fell and got yourself killed, it just isn’t appropriate to go around climbing walls.” She gives me a pointed look over the top of her teacup. “You know, given your future position in this palace.”
I choose to ignore her reference to the fact that I’m supposed to be a princess soon and cross my arms over my chest. I begin pacing to and from the window. “Where’s Roarke? You said he’d be back by now, but I didn’t see anyone standing guard outside his rooms, so I assume he isn’t in there.”
“He and Dad must have been delayed, that’s all. They have important business to deal with at the moment. You can’t expect them to rush back simply because you’re desperate to see your betrothed.” She smirks. I stick my tongue out at her. She throws a strawberry at me, then laughs when I dodge and continue walking. “They’ll be back soon, I’m sure. And please stop pacing. You’re making me nervous.” She waves to the chair opposite hers. “Sit down. Have you had breakfast yet?”
“No.” I drop into the chair with my arms still crossed. “I was too busy taking risks and climbing walls, remember?”
“You should choose breakfast next
time.” With a neat twist of her hand, a plate of butterfly-shaped pastries rises on its own and moves toward me. She’d no doubt be pleased if I used magic to lift one of the pastries and move it to my own plate, but that kind of thing seems like laziness to me. And I don’t think I could do it without knocking the whole plate over.
“You know why I want to see Roarke,” I say to her after placing a pastry on my plate—with my own perfectly functional hand. “He and I have an agreement, and he’s done nothing to fulfill his part yet.” Agreement. Such a simple word. It doesn’t carry nearly as much weight as the word ‘marriage.’
“Of course he hasn’t fulfilled his part yet. I hope you know he doesn’t plan to give you any information on how to get your mother out of her enchanted coma or fix her mental illness until after the union ceremony.”
“Yes,” I say quietly, still staring at my plate. “I do know that.” What I also know is that I don’t intend for that ceremony to ever happen. Everyone needs to think it will happen, but I plan to find out everything I need to know before the marriage takes place. Of course, I have no idea how I’m going to do that yet, but being in possession of a powerful Griffin Ability—speaking things into existence—can’t hurt. If I can use it at just the right moment in just the right way, I should be able to get out of here alive with all the information I need. I clear my throat and add, “I know, but he needs to prove himself to me. He needs to tell me something so I’ll know he isn’t just lying to get me to marry him.”
“My dear brother would never do something like that,” Aurora says, directing a few more items of food onto her plate.
I don’t know her well enough yet to know if she’s joking or if she really believes that. Either way, I’m not willing to trust Roarke. I need my own plan, and that involves gaining control of my Griffin Ability. I break off a piece of pastry and stare at it for a moment or two before saying, “Since climbing tower walls isn’t appropriate, perhaps my time would be better spent practicing my Griffin Ability. With the elixir, I mean, not just waiting for the random moments when my magic chooses to switch itself on.”
She shakes her head and finishes swallowing another mouthful of her tea. “I’m sorry, Em, but I was told not to give it to you until Roarke and my father return. Here, have some citrullamyn.” Several segments of a fruit that looks like a blood-red version of an orange fly in an arc from her plate onto my mine.
“Uh, thanks.” I slowly chew one while trying to figure out what I can say to change Aurora’s mind. I need that elixir in order to stimulate my Griffin Ability. The first vial I had was crushed to pieces during my encounter with Ada—the supremely nasty faerie who almost destroyed the whole of Stanmeade with her glass magic—but one of the Griffin rebels made more elixir so I could try to wake Mom from her enchanted coma. It didn’t work, but at least I had some of the elixir left. I brought it with me, planning to secretly consume tiny amounts in the hope of gaining control of my Griffin Ability without the Unseelies knowing. But I was searched before entering the palace. A guard discovered the elixir, and Aurora confiscated it. Roarke, who didn’t seem interested in spending more than a few minutes with his betrothed, had already left by that point.
“But Aurora,” I say to her in my most reasonable voice, “I’m no use to your family if I can’t figure out how to control my Griffin Ability. That’s the only reason Roarke’s marrying me, remember? So I need that elixir to help me learn how to use it.”
“Yes, but you don’t need to learn right this moment. You can practice under supervision when Roarke and Dad return.”
I look her squarely in the eyes. “Don’t they trust you to supervise me? Do they think you can’t handle me?”
She tilts her head back and laughs. “Oh, my dear Em. If you’re going to try to manipulate me, you’ll have to be a lot more subtle about it. That was a terrible attempt.”
I slide lower in my chair with a defeated sigh. “This is all such a waste of time,” I mutter. “Mom’s still stuck in some kind of evil, magic-induced coma, and I’m getting absolutely nowhere in figuring out how to help her.”
“You’re not wasting time. You’re learning how to use everyday magic and how to live as one of us,” Aurora says. “Speaking of which, please sit up straight. My mother would have heart palpitations if she saw you slouching like that.”
Aurora’s mother. The Unseelie Queen herself. I had dinner with her and Aurora on my first night here, with servants waiting on us the entire evening, filling our goblets with oddly colored drinks and our plates with food even better than the food Azzy cooked back at Chevalier House. I found it difficult to enjoy anything, though, given the anxiety cramping my stomach and making my fingers shake. It wasn’t as though Queen Amrath was cruel or unfriendly. She was over-the-top polite, in fact, but I knew she was watching me the entire time. Sizing me up. Waiting for me to prove myself completely unworthy of marrying her son. With every awkward moment that passed, I reminded myself of my highly valuable Griffin Ability. That’ll keep you alive and safe, I kept telling myself. They want your power more than they want a well-mannered princess.
“Em?” Aurora says. “Are you listening to me?”
I clear my throat and push myself up so I’m sitting straighter. I force my shoulders back. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“I said we need to have a talk about what you’re wearing, and also that you should try the honeystar tea. It’s quite invigorating. Noraya, come pour some tea for Emerson.”
Noraya, who was standing so still by the bedroom door that I didn’t notice her there, moves closer to the table. With a brief wave of her hand, the teapot rises into the air. “Oh, don’t worry,” I say quickly, sitting forward. “I can pour the tea.”
“Let her do it, Em,” Aurora says.
“But it’s just tea,” I argue as the teapot tilts over my cup and dark steaming liquid streams from its spout. “I can pour it myself.” Not with magic, since that would probably result in tea splashing all over the table, but my own two hands would do the job just fine.
“It doesn’t matter whether you can do it or not,” Aurora tells me. “What matters is that when you’re a member of the royal family, it’s proper for servants to wait on you.”
“I’m not a member of the royal family yet.” And I hopefully never will be.
“It’s also proper for you to wear court-appropriate clothing,” Aurora adds as Noraya steps away from the table, “and those—” she eyes my jeans and T-shirt with disapproval “—are not appropriate. Clarina and I will have to have another chat. She clearly hasn’t understood her instructions.”
“What? No, it isn’t Clarina’s fault. She gives me a new dress every morning, just as you told her to, but I don’t want to wear any of them. They’re ridiculous. Hundreds of layers of fabric with corsets and feathers and jewels and … stuff. It isn’t me.” The jeans, T-shirt and hoodie I’ve been wearing for the past few days are the clothes I had on when I arrived here. I hang them over a chair in my bedroom every night, and every morning I find them folded and clean, on the same chair.
Aurora arches an eyebrow. “Ridiculous?” she repeats. I realize I may have offended her, given the long skirt, tight bodice and bell-shaped sleeves of the dress she’s wearing. “I’m afraid it doesn’t matter what you or anyone else thinks, since that’s the way my mother and father wish the members of their court to dress.”
“Well, your parents have a seriously outdated sense of fashion. Everyone looks like they’re playing dress-up or getting ready to shoot a steampunk film.”
Her expression grows serious. “I wouldn’t say things like that if I were you.” She lowers her voice, leans closer, and adds, “My father has eyes and ears everywhere, and he wouldn’t appreciate comments like that.”
A chill creeps across my skin. Seems I haven’t been imagining the feeling of being watched. I wrap my arms around myself, feeling naked despite the fact that I’m dressed. “Even in the bedrooms?”
“Well.” Aurora leans
back. “Perhaps only ears in the bedrooms.”
“That’s just … wrong,” I whisper.
She laughs, and again I can’t tell if she’s joking about all of this. “Only if you have something to hide,” she says. She bites into another unidentifiable fruit and watches me as she chews and swallows. “Now tell me: how are you coming along with the magic I’ve taught you so far? Can you move things yet? Try to lift your plate and move it around in the air.”
“Uh …” I begin twisting a strand of hair around my forefinger. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if I drop it?”
“Then Noraya will gather up the broken pieces and throw them away. No big deal.”
My gaze slips down to the hair wrapped around my finger. I’m almost used to the bright blue color mixed in with the dark brown. It’s part of what marks me as a faerie. As someone who belongs in this world. Slowly, I lower my hand. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try.”
Drawing magic from deep inside me is easy now, but sending it toward the plate, coaxing it around and beneath and telling it to lift something up, is a different story. Ever so slowly, with my hands clenched in my lap and my eyes just about boring holes into the plate, it begins to rise. It wobbles slightly, and the half-eaten pastry and pieces of red citrus slide to one side. I try to right it, end up overcompensating, and the whole plate flips over. The food lands on the table with several soft thumps, and the plate remains suspended upside down in the air. It shudders and sways before I imagine my magic lowering it carefully. It drops the final few inches, landing neatly on top of my breakfast.
Aurora claps her hands. “Well, that was entertaining. Hardly perfect, but it’s a good start.”
“I guess.” I turn the plate over and begin cleaning up my mess.
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